Smoking fish, regrowing celery and the usual rambling.

I made up the brine for the tilapia and it should soak for about 1 hour.

Then it comes out and gets a light rinse and on the racks to dry

 Allowing the surface to dry before smoking causes a 'pellicle' to form,,, its a slightly tacky skin that helps the smoke flavor stick to the meat and helps preserve the texture of the fish.

Then on to the smoker racks (sprayed with canola oil) to go in.

Preheat the smoker and get the chips going.

I'm out of Alder so i'm using Mesquite. I have Hickory but i like that better on beef or pork. If i use it on fish it hints too much of bacon and i like seafood with bacon but its not quite right this way to me.

In goes the fish

Another few hours and a couple pans of chips.  It smells glorious.


(photo to come later if i remember, they are still smoking)

And here  they are:

Wrap in foil 2 fillets each

Bag and label then refrigerate. It can keep for 2 weeks i'm told.  But it will be eaten before that.

I could have smoked twice the amount that i did, i spaced widely and didn't use all my racks, but where this was an experiment with this type of fish i didn't want to do a big batch.
I think it was a success, it tastes very much like smoked herring without the bones and less salty.

I watched an episode of Emeril this morning and he smoked some tomatoes.... he also mentioned smoked garlic. I have to keep those things in mind for later on this summer.



I sent an email off to Burpee about the grapes. I tried to not be longwinded, but i told them that i didn't want to use up my replacement option right away because of the winter factor in each possible scenario.  I basically said that i think the plants are dead, when would they advise the best time to try again? Only i think it took me 4 paragraphs to do it.  lol

I took my Sea-Buckthorn  seeds out of the fridge a few days ago but i have not seen anything sprout yet. The Huckleberry seeds will be ready to come out of the fridge soon too. The Rose of Sharon seeds haven't done anything yet, its been a couple weeks out of the fridge for them and it will be time to take out the Autumn Olive seeds by Friday.  I got them on eBay and the skill of the seed collector and the suitability of the plants the seeds came from for seed propagation varies greatly.  The listed seeds cost me less than $10 to attempt... of course i would like to see something.  I have enough left of a few to try other methods, such as wintersowing, if the tray chitting method bombs.
I also have something of a care package coming from a dear friend, with cuttings and starts from a few berry plants to try out.
I'm seriously considering  ripping out the flower beds and going to a strictly fruit and berry garden. lol I was going to put the flowers back, but i'm reconsidering that.
I noticed that what i think are the nice neighbors' raspberry plants have almost totally migrated to my garden. Its really invaded quite badly. It is a little annoying, but i'm going to pay more attention to the fruit this year and if it is good i might leave it right there. Extracting my Clematis from it will be tricky.

I have to find a spot to plant some dill.

I may need to hill up some of my brassicas...  i took the row cover off and of course the next day was windy and some of the plants were not quite ready for that.  So they are leaning a bit to the side. But i have to make sure which ones can be hilled in case its not good for all or any of them.
Its been a long time since i have  tried kohlrabi, mine don't appear to be getting ready to bulb yet. The plants are pretty tall and a nice vibrant purple color, but the stems are still pretty slender.
Its been an odd year and where i had been planning this garden since early winter it seems everything should be along further that it is, but it really isn't that late in the season.  Its only mid June, normally my earliest plants would only have been in the ground for 2 weeks instead of 4 or so.


Free Celery!

I took a short reading break in between writing here and doing little home tasks and while i was reading one of the other blogs i love to follow, i came across an idea from Providence Acres
I learned that i can regrow a celery plant from the cut bottom of a grocery store bunch.  It makes sense, i have often noticed the tiny, partially formed mini stalks inside the cut-off celery heart, but i never thought the plant could regenerate to a reusable extent from that rootless bit of waste destined for the compost pile.  But i guess (get full details and instructional pictures at the link to Providence Acres) you simply cut the bottom couple inches off, and plant it.  It can sit in a saucer of water overnight to give it a boost or to keep it until you have time for it.  Then plant it in the garden, cover with an inch or so of soil  and within a week you should see green tops coming up.  I am under the impression that this can be done over and over again to subsequent bunches indefinitely.  The idea of "never having to buy celery again" seems to not be a far fetched notion.
I use a fair amount of celery, but trying to grow it from seed seemed like a hassle and i never expected it would work for me, but this sure is worth a try.

Not much going on today.

The grapes planted yesterday of course look no different. I haven't planted any new seeds.  I did some weeding, but nothing to brag about.
I have been reading a couple pages at a time from "The Grape Grower" and i think i get it.
I like how the author gets you to start from the beginning without treating you like a dolt.

There have been lots of other things to do, like laundry. Its been a few days since we had bright sun and a nice breeze, i like to line-dry so i will hold off on washing towels for a nice day. Today is a good day to dry.

I am planning on smoking some fish.  The last time i did, it was salmon. It came out delicious!
But i don't have salmon in the budget right now, so i am going to try and see if Tilapia takes smoking well. I'm not normally a big fan of fresh water fish, they have a muddy taste sometimes that i can't get past.  I spent most of my childhood up to my neck in frog ponds, so that muddy taste reminds me too much of such things in a not-so-good way.  But Tilapia is pretty mild, close to tasteless if you don't season it carefully,  i think smoking it will bring out what flavor it does have.
I have to double-check on brining it first. With salmon i used a classic salt/sugar/water brine:
1/2 Cup Sugar 
1/2 Salt (no iodine)
1 quart of water

I soaked the salmon overnight (8 hours) in that, but it was 1" thick with skin on. The tilapia is thinner and skinless and salmon is oily.  I did notice when i steamed the tilapia the other day in the bamboo steamer on a bed of pak choi leaves, it tasted very much like fresh trout. SO if i treat it like trout, i might get it right?
I found a nice chart here:
3Men
Showing the brine time by weight of individual pieces.
Most of the flavor in the result is not going to be of fish, its going to be the smoke, but i don't want to end up with a fillet-shaped shingle.

But this is an experiment, so i think i'll just soak them in the above brine for 2 hours and smoke them for a total of 4 hours.
My smoker is a Little Chief front loader and it is sort of a warm smoker, not a true cold smoker- though in the dead of winter it can be. It heats to about 180 at the most and large roasts have to be finished off in the oven (i use my gas grill and cast-iron dutch oven). Its mostly a tool to apply the smoke flavor, not a cooker/smoker.  But it does work as a one-step for fish and jerky.

More grapes

Grapes came in finally a little after 1:00 this afternoon. I'm not terribly impressed. I know that "dormant" can look awfully dead....  but when one is snapped in half and the broken part is just dry and brown with no green, its not usually a good sign.  The other grape plant didn't look much better, when i clipped away a bit off the tip there was some green but it didn't look like a live green color.
Burpee guarantees their plants for a year, and in a few weeks i'll know if they are even alive, but it will be too late to replace them before the replacement plants will be acclimated enough for winter.  If they do survive but are off to a bad enough start that they will be too weak for this winter and i find that they have croaked in the spring, that might be a better time to turn to Burpee to honor their guarantee and send me replacements. I think it is a one-time replacement.

My other alternative is to take a refund and reorder next spring, putting me a year behind on growing.
If one of the plants lives (the order was a package of 2 though i only needed one) i'll ask for a half refund and go my merry way and maybe root a cutting from the live one for insurance.

It was raining out when i got the package and when i planted them so i didn't take pictures. But i will later and edit the pics into this post.  They had great looking roots. I'm not sure how to tell if the roots were alive, their packing wasn't very moist but i think it was maybe damp enough to keep things just ok.

I wish Burpee was like Stark's.... Stark's sent my stuff in a big, long box and not a paper bag. It was a sturdy paper bag, but a paper bag is a paper bag..... my ground cover fabric was sent in a box... and the paper bag probably would have been fine for the roll of cover. Funny how things work like that.

But far and away, my Stark's order was superior to my Burpee order. My grapes from Stark's are just about to break buds.  I can't wait till my blueberry plants have hardened off enough to plant out. The leaves are coloring up nicely.



Ok, here's pics.

The Edelweiss that looks bad...  this was broken in two when it came.

This one might possibly get somewhere:

Compare that to the Marechal Foch and Reliance from Starks' (Frontenac is taking its sweet time but looks like its about to get moving so i didn't photo it)

I tend to fret over things, so i hope something happens with my Edelweiss soon or i think i'll burst.

But here are the blueberries, getting used to full sunlight, Patriot on the left and Blueray on the right.

Oh, since i took the cover off the brassica row, i took a picture

The Red Russian kale is pretty looking, a couple dried right out a week after planting, so i put a couple cabbage seedlings in to replace them.

Since this has turned into a picture post, here is the poor little fig plant .  It has started to regrow some leaves in its joints and it looks much better now than it did out of the box:

It will live, but its going to look pathetic for a while.

June 15th deadline

I guess that is the traditional day to have 'everything' in if you want a summer crop. I heard it reiterated somewhere that things planted early in June will catch up with things planted around Memorial Day by the first week of July. I'm not sure, if that is so, why plant around Memorial Day? 
I have a good chance to test this theory out this year. My dad and i managed to get those extra seedlings into his garden yesterday.  We must have planted about 18 tomatoes, 4 peppers, 3 eggplants, all the winter and summer squashes and cucumbers-  i think they have 6 of the Sundance yellow summer squash - This is an extra-prolific summer squash in a class of plants known for their prolific production. They will be up to their ears soon! lol

The blueberry plants are adjusting well it seems, we have had gray skies for the last 3 days so that actually helps.


The UPS tracking on my Burpee order says my plants are 'out for delivery' so  by 11am they should be delivered.

I bought "The Grape Grower: A guide to organic Viticulture"  for my Kindle for PC  I don't expect to adhere purely to  the Organic culture of my grapes until i see the reality of actually growing them in my yard and see my setup in actual practice.  I'd like to, but the beginners' learning curve could prove too steep for the first few rounds.  But the book got great reviews and the reviews convinced me that it has enough cold-climate info for me as well as information on so many other aspects of grape growing, i decided to get it.  I am only a few pages in so far though.

I need to decide when i am going to rip out the flowerbeds in the front of the house. The Iris didn't bloom hardly at all this year, which means they need to be divided anyway. I think i might do things 3' square at a time. Hopefully when i get into it, i will be able to separate the bulbs and tubers and recognize which are tulips and which are daffs, then i can bag and box them up and set them in the basement to rest until i can put down the weed barrier and put back just the things i want to keep. 
I can't decide if i want to start in the next week or so or wait until later. The weather is only going to get hotter, but the greens off the bulbs and roots need to get sunlight for a bit longer. 
I'm also not sure what to do about the garden at the edge of the yard that the nice neighbors are on.  When we bought the house a fence was there. It got rotten within the first year we moved in so we removed it.  When it was installed by the former owner of this house, it was put slightly within the planted part,  so on the neighbor's side of the fence was a 2' strip of  "escaped" plants which they tended.  When we removed the fence, i assumed the plants were theirs and left that strip alone, and they continued to tend it a little so i left it alone.  They also put their bird feeder stakes just on the outside of it....  but hubby said he thought the whole thing was ours and the survey we had done seems to confirm that.  But where it was 'shared' for so long i don't know if they have anything in there that they'd like to keep. I haven't seen much of them lately so i haven't been able to ask.

There are raspberries that i think belong to them that are taking over the parts that i  know are mine. They are coming up all over. That is going to be a pain to clear.


I think i might take the row covers off by the end of this month.  I would have gotten better advantage from them if the garden was ready earlier and the spring wasn't so warm. I probably will take off the one over the brassicas but leave on the tomato and corn row. The brassicas don't need to be warmer. I'm wondering about the bugs, but i don't want my broccoli and cabbage to bolt.
 I'll be ble to play with things more next year. This year the focus was to just get things planned and executed. I'll arrange the plant placement better next year, grouping things that need heat with other things that need heat or cover from bugs.  I think the covers will go back on in late August tho...  safe from frost, it might extend the production a bit longer.

So, the last planting of grapes today and some weeding will do it.

The tree is gone.

I was going o wait for hubby to do it for me, but i think it would have been weeks to wait.  So i decided that since our chain saw is a small sized version, i could handle cutting down a  tree that size.

It really was starting to look bad. No fruit and the leaves looked small and water-starved.

I took off one of the larger limbs first, then removed the white post and cut it from the upper part where it bent.

Hubby came home shortly after i used the lopper to trim the branches off the felled part and helped me move the stuff out of the way. Then we took the other post made from another tree out.  While we were getting that out of the ground we noticed that the  stump of the apple tree was very loose in the ground. I was actually able to push it down with very little effort. The roots were not even holding it up. It did have a tap root that was still hanging on a bit, but i used the loppers on that.  If it was that weak this spring, i think a hot summer then a hard winter would kill it.

So there is the little tree, in full sun now.  I pruned off some watersprouts and hubby propped it with the post to wait until we put the post in the ground.

It needs more thinning where i can't reach without a ladder, but i'll get out there in the next few days and clean things up more.  Maybe even set that post and tie up the tree.

Then i did use the Bonide on it.  I had actually started out to do just that earlier.  But when i got out there and took a close look at the big tree, it was obviously struggling too much. And why spray a tree that was coming down?
The rain went by  without touching us and the sky is cloudy and windless so it was a good day to spray.

Another task that i am glad is finished.

Radish picking

Lifted the end of the row cover

Looks ready

The average size was about the length of my thumb, but fatter

The Hailstones were starting to be ready too, just 3 of those:

Probably about 20 or more radishes out of maybe 3 feet of row. A few have hollow centers, which is annoying

But most of them were sound

They weren't as mild as i expected and i think that is because of the warm spring and the row covers making it especially warm.  I will have to plan for that next year. I will be able to get radishes in earlier than i did this year and they will be out in time to plant things like green beans and such. But they will be put in a row that won't get a cover.

Plants are very much bug-free this year. I'm amazed.  Even the melons and cucumbers are being left alone very much. I see a few flea beetle nibbles on some of the cuke leaves, but that is it and it stopped before any real damage happened.  Here are the better growing plants in that row.

Bird house gourd:

I think this is Pony Yellow, i tried to remember the order i took the pictures in, but i just can't.

 This is Long Island Cheese, an heirloom winter squash. Its a very pretty and classic looking fruit:

I need to find out what these are.  Some sort of rose?  They smell incredible and bloom just beyond our fence every year. They are in the scrubby wasted areas.  I used to smell them in the years before we added this lot to ours, but i was never close enough to see what was making that smell.

 I meant to photograph it last year but the blooms were gone before i could.


The apples are starting to get larger, some are already being bothered by pests.  I need to spray again, but where things have been going on it hasn't happened and the rain has narrowed my chances a little more. Today would have been a good day to get it done, but the radar has shown rain close by for hours, its not getting here fast, but it will.

We are going to take out that big tree. I can't remember if i already logged that decision, but we will. Whenever hubby gets to it.  There is no room for 2 trees only 4 feet apart and since the big tree is doing poorly, its the one to go. The little tree is doing well despite crowding. Hubby wants me to replace the big tree with something like it, so i will eventually. But it will be planted farther than 4 feet away!

I really want to take those row covers off!  They are doing an awesome job keeping the bugs at bay and warming the soil and slowing evaporation of rain... but it makes going out to weed a bit of a hassle. The covers have to be removed or pinned up first and putting them back is an added step.  It really is worth having them on, but i have to balance my annoyance with its effectiveness.

Here are some pics of the rows under cover for comparison

Brassica Row:

Roots and Beans Row:

Tomato Row

But see what i mean about the weeds?

Parsnip seedlings- so i remember next year:

And carrots....  you can see how the seed tape made pretty decent spacing

But they germinated so odd, some are already 3"-5" high and others are just sprouting.  Same with the parsnips. I wonder if i got seeds that weren't so fresh or if i wasn't as thorough with watering as i tried to be.

I  just got the Topsy Turvy planted.

Pain. In. The. Butt.

The issues are that they are very heavy when filled with soil.  They need to be hung someplace where sun will reach the plant- which means that they can't be under the overhang on the side of the house because there will only be full sun maybe 3 hours a day to reach it. The shed is out because the trim is not sturdy enough.  So i decided the basketball hoop was my best bet,  this will put the plant at eye level.  But the planter will be too high to fill with dirt when it is up there, so it needs to be filled on the ground, then lifted.
I don't know what hubby (or myself for that matter) did with my rope so i couldn't pulley it up.
Its really hard to fill a container with a plant on its bottom without squishing the plant.  The tomato plant had to be inserted before the dirt goes in. I tried hooking it onto a table, but my "S" hook wouldn't catch the edge, the wheelbarrow handles were too low, the saw horses were too low, any other items were too light and would have been dragged over
I finally set it on a cinder block with the tomato dangling inside the hole, then i filled the thing with dirt.

I used the same cinder block to boost me up to hook the planter to the basketball hoop.

Scrawny tomato...  But it should catch up.  We'll see if it was worth the effort.

I got my tracking number from Burpee's, my last two grape plants will be in Monday, so i am happy for that.

Its been a long week with farewell activities for my Grandfather, but it was comforting to see so many people show up to say goodbye. Actually it was amazing.

The peonies were all in bloom this week so many of the arrangements were made using the flowers from family plants, many of them were Grampy's. It seems poignant that he left just as his favorite blooms were coming in. I think God has perfect timing when He comforts us in these ways.

Well, i think the radishes are ready to harvest, i was temped to pull a few last week, so they must be waiting for me now. It looks like it is going to rain out so i either need to go pick them soon or wait until it dries out.  Tomorrow i am going to get those seedlings to my parents and get them planted. My big sister and her hubby are up from California and i'd like to rope them into planting too, i don't think it will be too hard to convince them to ;o)

Grapes and Blueberries...

My Stark's order came in yesterday.

Everything  looked pretty good. The blueberry plants will need very slow acclimation to sunlight, they have many tiny leaves that are VERY pale and tender looking. It looks like they broke dormancy in their shipping box.  But they are nice sized, the leaves are numerous and i'm sure they will take off  once they adjust.

2 Patriot:

And Blueray:

Since the grapes were just budding but not leafing out i was able to plant them immediately.  And it helps that today is rainy, they will have an easier transition with moist air and soil.

This Marechal Foch vine was the most impressive one

I had intended to take pictures of each before i planted then after, but i just needed to get them set in and watered, so i didn't.

Frontenac:

Reliance:

I pinned the planting holes in the weed barrier closed with ground staples. Later i will edge the barrier with either timbers or decorative brick and put on a light layer of bark mulch.  But i have to plant the blueberries  first and hopefully Burpee will come through with my Edelweiss grapes soon so i can get this project completed.

My Fig plant from Henry Field's came in also.  It looks ok i guess.  Its a spindly little green sprig that looks light-starved. Has 3 leaves, one large and 2 tiny. One of the small leaves has what looks like powdery mildew on it (baking soda spray will fix that). I think i might put in a complaint.  It should pull through, but really...i waited since February (and i know they could not ship it then) i submitted my order early so i thought i wouldn't end up with their late spring dredges.  I'll give it a few days, if it springs into some fresh growth i won't be too irritated. But it will be a number of months before its a $14 plant.   If i consider the whole batch of plants i bought including the citurs, it wasn't a bad buy, but the Fig is definitely the last and least in regard to value.

So, i have not heard from Burpee yet about my grapes, but they did send out their "Last chance" perennial sale email, so i take that to mean they are still doing summer shipments. I will be beyond irritated if i get a note telling me that they will send my plants next spring.... or worse, this fall.  This fall would be the worst thing because they won't have enough time to send out enough roots to get themselves established before winter. I won't have anyplace to store the plants over winter either.  I submitted my order a week ago... so i hope there is movement soon.

Oh and i have to add this, since i am recording  online ordering results.  I finally got to get a closer look at the Big Hip rose plants i bought from Oikos  at their eBay store.  They wrapped the roots well enough that i have just had them sitting in the shade until i can get to them, but by now i really had to make sure they were not going to languish there, so i opened up the wrapping and found that they had definitely sent me more than the 5 i ordered. I had guessed maybe 7 plants on arrival,  but separating them i found that they had sent me 10 of them.  This is great, cause if i end up killing half of them, i'll still have the original number i needed for their use.
It also saves me the effort of propagating the extras i thought i'd need to fill in the space.
Since i still don't have time for them for another few days, i took another kitty litter bucket, used the wood burning tool to make drainage holes in the bottom, filled it part of the way with dirt and left the rose plants in their paper pots, put them in and filed around them with dirt. Then i watered it well and set it out in a bright spot. They should be fine just like that until later.
So i was really thrilled to get an unexpected double order. Can't beat $2 a plant, shipped free. :o)

More digging...and harvesting.

My weed block roll came in from Burpee's this morning.  So we got the ground in front of the fence tilled and the material laid down and pegged and marked for the posts that are intended to support the grape plants when they arrive...  no word from Burpee when the Edelweiss will arrive and the Stark order is due tomorrow. I expect to try and get the plants in as soon as i possibly can.

I don't know how i'm going to drive those posts in though. They are 6', so the tops are above my head when they are upright and i can't whack at them with the mini sledge. That and the ground is rocky, so about every six inches, tilled or not, i peg a rock.  I think i could use the hooked crowbar and sort of pilot drill a hole with that, then put the post in that hole.  We do have a post-hole-digger but i'm not so good at using it.  But i might have to try.

I need to pick the Pak Choi. It is too big and it wants to bolt now. It really should have been harvested  last weekend, but i have never grown it before and i was curious about how it does at a larger size. But now that it is actually threatening to bolt, i will harvest it and plant some more. I tasted it and its still quite nice. Not bitter and still tender.  So i think i will put some pak choi on the grill with a couple tilapia fillets for a nice light supper.

I also need to plant a tomato in the Topsy-Turvy planter my oldest daughter found for me at a yard sale last year.  I admit i am curious to try it.  I have known people to use 5 gallon buckets as suspended planters for tomatoes, but if you look online about the Topsy-Turvy there are many conflicting reviews.  I really want to see if many of the bad reviews were for real. The buckets were always said to work really well both upright and suspended...

*****************

Ok, i  got the "vineyard" all ready.  It needs a better title....  or does a handful of vines make a Vineyard?
Mini- vinny- yard.
Mini-Vineyard... i like that.
At any rate, it is ready to accept the plants as soon as they arrive.  There is even enough room on either end for the blueberries.

Roll out the red carpet...erm, the black carpet rather.

I had to pin it down with whatever was at hand cause of course the wind was blowing.

Oh, before i did that, i drew a line 3' away  from the fence so i had a guide and i used this:

(which, by the way,  my Grandfather gave me :o) )
to till the area so i could make sure the soil was mostly sandy loam as i remembered it was and not all hardpan and clay like i was a bit worried there was.

So anyway, i rolled out the "20-year" weed barrier, then marked out where the posts need to go.  I decided that i will attempt the minimum recommended 6' between posts. Its going to be at least a full year, maybe 2 before i will know if it was a good decision or not.

I used yellow fluorescent spray paint to mark where the posts had to go through the weed barrier...  if the wind blew things out of their straight line i wanted to at least not have to measure every 6' again.

I also made my own ground staples out of a pile of old wire coat hangers i bundled and saved years ago. Those things are good for so many things but i finally used up my coat hanger stash today.

Pounding the stakes in was no treat but they did go in and except for the first 3 posts (which kept hitting potato-sized rocks) they all went in without too much of a fuss.

I took the picture kind of low because i am so darn sick of that ugly house being in all of my pictures.


Glad the hard part of this project is over now.  Still not certain how i plan to tie up the vines when the time comes. I'm still leaning toward a low set cordon,  i'd like it to look purposeful in the winter (and be low enough to be sheltered somehow in the winter), not just a scribble of vines all over.  But the 6' posts don't look as tall when they are 1.5' in the ground.  I may have to save some more money and replace them with 8' or find a non-ugly way to raise another wire to take care of the higher vines.  I have probably 2 years to figure that out.  I don't plan to string the wires until fall since i will be using the posts as both wire supports and growing stakes.  I bought 7 posts because i wasn't certain if i was going to try to keep the Suffolk red or not, so acted as though i would in case i did.

I did go pick all the pak choi.  It filled one half of my two bay kitchen sink most of the way.  I should have weighed it but i forgot.  I ended up wrapping the tilapia fillets in the larger leaves with salt and pepper and steamed it in my bamboo steamer. They tasted quite a bit like fresh trout that way. A little milder in flavor, but nice.

There are actually some frost warnings out in the state tonight:

But not in my area,  though it does make me nervous.  All the white areas are the higher elevations and their valleys, so they get colder there. We are expecting an overnight low of  40 degrees,  which is chilly compared to what we have gotten used to.

I think that is all i wanted to take note of today.

Lots to do....

Since i didn't feel like writing for a couple days, i have some stuff to catch up on.

I need to start taking some pictures too.  I took the cover off all the hoops to do some work under them the other day.  I left off the cover that was over the melon row since the plants have grown quite a bit.
It rained all weekend so the ground is now nicley moist. We even had some tornado warnings yestrerday.  The system that had what was reported to have a funnel cloud actually passed within 5 miles of where we live. So it was a bit surreal for a while watching radar loops and the news station.  We did get some pretty hefty winds and some huge rain drops.  I didn't look under the hoops yet, but the wind only pulled one hoop out of one socket but everything stayed put.

I have a few mail order items to expect in the next week or so. Henry Field's does not have an estimated arrival date with their UPS tracking feature.
My grapes, blueberries and lingonberries are on their way from Stark's, that should b here by Wednesday
Burpee has shipped my weed barrier, but not my grapes yet. But the weed barrier is expected to arrive tomorrow.

My Big Hip roses came in on Friday and they look good. The ebay auction was for 5 plants but it looks like i got 7. Yay!

I did get the corn planted on Friday as planned. Three types.
Incredible,
Stowell's Evergreen
and
Golden Bantam

I planted them in the last half of my Tomato row and it rained shortly after they were planted, so i should see them come up fairly soon.

I need to try and get my stakes in the ground soon, for the grapes.  I don't know if i should dig up the Suffolk Red.  I need to take down the little trellis i made for it to put up my new stuff....  its not going to survive a winter up here.  I think even if i go to heroic lengths to shelter it, it won't ever recover enough to fruit. I might try to keep it in a pot if i can't find a home for it.

I tried to Round up the grass and stuff under the electric fence, but it rained less than 3 hours after i sprayed it.  So i might have to do it all over again today.
I think i'll put the cardboard down too.  I think i will lay that out, plug in the posts and then put the weed barrier right over the cardboard and then plant the grapes.  I hope the cardboard will attract the worms as it breaks down. The area that i plan to put the grapes in looks pretty barren right now so it needs some compost too.  I don't know if i can get the Mantis into it, but i'd like to.

I spent some time trying to decide what trelising method i want to use on the grapes. I'd kind of like to be systematic about it. Make a real plan instead of just plant them and watch them take over everything. My first thought was to do what turns out to be similar to what is called  Four Arm Kniffen.  It looked like the simplest plan, but i guess it is better for some grape types and not so much for others.  I'm having a hard time finding the info on which method is best for which of the grapes i have.  Its been a bit confusing trying to research this.
I have gotten a lot of use out of the charts at Double A Vineyard's site.  The chart recommends Top Wire Cordon for 3 of the four grapes that i am getting. The last wants a Modified Munson. After much research, i know what those are and in finding that i also read that those styles may not be the greatest for cold areas like mine.  These training methods carry the cordons on the topmost wires- and in the winter they are very exposed to cold.  I do not have any desire to lay down these plants each fall, which is why i chose Zone 3-4 hardy vines. Except for Reliance. Hopefully the extra padding of a lower zone will make up for lack of extensive winter protection.  The most i would intend to do is wrap them in burlap or sandwich them with straw bales.

ANyway, the most asthetically pleasing trellis method i have seen is the Low or Mid Wire Cordon. The main part of the vines take on a candelabra shape.  I have read that it is an acceptable method for cold regions since the snow cover will help protect the cordons and in the summer the heat radiating back from the ground is helpful for ripening.

Good thing is that it will take a few years to establish this shape and as long as i don't lose the vines to a harsh winter, i have plenty of time to decide before i am committed to one method.

You Tube has actually been quite helpful in picking up the vocabulary of the world of grapes and also lets me get  an idea of what to look for as the plants grow.

I think we have decided to let the big apple tree go. It looks pretty sad this year. The leaves are small, it has no apples, and its such a mess. I was advised that i could just lop it off at the point where it bends over and it might re-branch itself.  I'd like to try that, but it dosen't solve the issue of the trees being within 4' of eachother.  If the big tree wasn't so thin this year, the little tree wouldn't be getting half the light it is getting now.  If we get the big tree healthy, the little tree will decline.  The little tree is in decent shape so far, so it would be a real shame to let a declining tree ruin a good one.
I think there is a chance if we cut the big one down to a tall stub, i could send it to my parents.  They have an apple tree there that is about to go, this might make a fair replacement once it recovers.  At the very least,  this tree can be stripped of bark and chipped up for smoking meats. It won't go to waste.
I don't know for certain, but with all the wild apples around here, i might not need a second apple as a polinator. I'm not 100% sure-  but i did learn a bit from a Chuck Ingals video i came across that if you don't have a polinator tree, the next best thing is to find another apple tree that is in bloom, pick a few stems and bring them home to your own tree.  It was kind of funny because in the example picture he used (it was a filmed power-point lecture) he had used a vase to hold the bunch of blossoms and had to carefully balance the vase in the branches of the tree. He had laughed at himself because he was asked at a previous lecture why he didn't use a bag of water and just tie it to a branch....  it was amusing.  I'm not exactly sure where someone might get fresh apple blossoms from a distant place, but i could get them from my parents' and maybe a nearby orchard won't object if i ask to carefully pick a few small twigs.  Anyway, it is an option at least until i could get another apple  to blooming size if i discover next year that the wild apples weren't enough.

After a few days of rain, its nice to see the sun out.  We are getting some stiff breezes but the air is warm.
I'm also going to try and get the Grapefruit tree outside. I usually get its summer vacation started a few days earlier than this and the rainy days would have been perfect, but i kept putting it off.  The plant is upstairs in a window and though its not really heavy, the pot and stand is awkward and Grapefruit trees have thorns!

Oh, did i mention that on Friday i also got all my little marigold seedlings planted out in the garden, most of the basil, all the rosemary, the sage, nasturtiums, and all those little odd herb and veggie seedlings from the re-sown onion flat (the ones that had blown over in the greenhouse). I put out the chives too and most of the Welsh onions.  They are perennials like chives, but thicker, white-flowered and more like garlic in flavor. I'm giving some to my parents as well.
I'm also giving my mom most of the perennial seedlings i sowed. I hadn't decided for sure what i was going to do with the front and side flowerbeds at the time i planted the seeds, but by the time we dig out the flowerbeds this fall, it will be too late for the seedlings to get a good grip before winter.  So i hope to plant some at my mom's within the next handful of weeks.  They are gaillardia and ornamental rudbeckia and a couple of the rose root plants.  I might keep the pleurisy root since its more of a wildflower and though i love the half-wild look in most plants, my mom prefers the more refined looking things, so it might not be as welcome in her garden. The rudbeckia would be pushing it if she didn't like the wild ones as much as she does.

I really want to just start ripping the messy flower beds out right now, but i need a more reliable babysitter and stronger pain medicine for that.

My niece, who is now expecting her first baby, helped me dig it out the first time.  I sure wish she was here to play in he dirt with me right now. lol

I have to coordinate prepping the fenceline for the blueberries.  I don't think my soil is quite acidic enough. It seems to be close to neutral, so i want to try and take a few large Rubbermaid type totes to my parents' and load up on fallen pine needles. I could till them in before planting or i could mulch the plants with it.  It shouldn't take much i imagine. I'll have to watch for ticks though!

I still haven't harvested castings from the worm bin yet.
...and i think it might be too late to plant annual seeds and expect much.
I can't say i don't have enough things to do!


****

i just checked my email and i got a note from Stark's.  I won't be getting my Lingonberry this year, they ran out. *sniffle*

They are going to refund me the difference.  I hope i don't get another email telling me they are out of something else i ordered. I can accept the lingonberry, but i can't accept the grapes or blueberries not being available. I may be downright angry if anything else is out of stock, especially after they already told me everything was sent.  I'm bracing myself for more frustration. Grapes take 4 years to bear, i don't need any setbacks.

Of course, the refund of about $10 will allow me to buy a book on grapes through Amazon for Kindle for PC.
 I may order lingonberries again next year if i have enough room, i tend to fill up spaces quickly.  Nature abhors a vacuum, and i have a lot of goji seedlings....and 2 beach plums...

My Grandfather.

My Grandfather passed away on Saturday.  I didn't really want to post about it because it makes it feel too final. I think i need to though,  i don't think it has hit me yet that he is gone. The man has been there for my whole life.  We were very blessed to have had him for so long. He got to be a Great Grandfather many times over.  If we could have had him another 8 months, he would have been here to add another "Great" to his Grandfather title.
But he really was ready to go. He had cancer in a number of organs and had survived impressively with MS since he was 40...  The dear man was plain worn out. It was hard to watch him go, but he really assured us that he was ready and often said that he was often surprised to have gotten this far.  We tried to visit him when we could and he took a huge amount of joy in seeing my little one. My youngest daughter was born on his birthday and i don't know if he could have ever gotten a better birthday present.  I do wish the littlest would have had a chance to get to know him better, i don't think she will be able to remember him from 15 months of age, but as i told my husband, "Grampy makes a great  legend".

I don't feel ready right now to write a lot about this. I also didn't want to start my blog journal again without saying something.  Even if it were a private journal, this page would have been hard to write. I didn't want to not say something either... that just wouldn't be right.

He really inspired my interest in gardening.  He used to grow things like 12' sunflowers that he was quite proud of.  I spent a lot of time with him when i was younger. Much of it was either wandering through the gardens that he and Memere put together, or sitting inside and talking about strawberries and beans and tomatoes and peonies... just everything.  It doesn't sound like much and i'm not a great gardener, but he really was the major influence for my efforts.
To describe him would take days, weeks, months and to put it into a few sentences is not easy. But i didn't want to leave a blank page.
He really was the center of the family.  We revolved around him in many ways. Not just because he had MS and was stuck in a power chair, but he was the main consideration when family gatherings were planned.
Most families gather around the Christmas tree during Christmas parties. We gathered around Grampy.

When i was little and the subject of dying came up (he'd lived through a few heart attacks as i grew up) he never said "buried".  He said when he died he wanted to be "planted".  I liked the way it sounded much better than burying.  It had some expectation to it. When you bury an item, its gone. When you plant something, there is the expectation that something will happen to that which was buried....like a seed.
It reminds me of a couple verses in the Bible... particularly:

1 Th 4:16-17 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
Then we which are alive [and] remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

The "dead in Christ" are like seeds, planted and waiting to be raised up...

1 Th 4:13 But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.


Soon.....we will meet again.